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Hunterhr posted:Infantry is disturbingly hard to kill. Their inner ears would be tomato soup and their nerves would be some combination of shattered and frayed. I mean even if they're entrenched they're getting a pretty good concussion effect hitting them from most of those shells, and assuming you're just pouring a WWI-style barrage on them where you have a bunch of guns firing once every few seconds, you're putting a serious hurting on them.
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Aug 9, 2015 08:22
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Happy Nuke Day Two: Nagasaki Boogaloo, everyone.
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Aug 9, 2015 09:01
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FAUXTON posted:Their inner ears would be tomato soup Ooh! What sort of ear protection have soldiers had historically? I sure wouldn't want to be one of these poor motherfuckers  When did we go from fingers in ears to issued wads of cotton to rubber plugs to the modern electronic stuff? I guess when I say "soldier", I mostly mean artillerymen, since my understanding is even today many infantry forgo hearing protection outside of training, because they would rather be able to hear faint noises now, and live with the tinnitus later. But what about the guys shooting cannons in 1650? Koesj posted:This is not TFR. What is the historical point you're trying to make or at least address? Don't trust stated effective range of a rifle, it is a very imprecise measurement at best, and completely worthless if it is based on unrepeatable testing. Keldoclock fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 09:35
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JaucheCharly posted:I'd like to hear more about modern counter-counter battery Do we keep stacking "counter-" to it till artillery on the whole front tied in exploding their counterparts? FAUXTON posted:Their inner ears would be tomato soup and their nerves would be some combination of shattered and frayed. I mean even if they're entrenched they're getting a pretty good concussion effect hitting them from most of those shells, and assuming you're just pouring a WWI-style barrage on them where you have a bunch of guns firing once every few seconds, you're putting a serious hurting on them. And that's without the "fun" toys this thread keeps talking about. It seems the only place left for infantry is the city (unless the enemy decided to level that, too). On a somewhat unrelated matter, just finished watching A Bridge Too Far  On an even less related matter, how good is this reading suggestion list in the first answer?
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Aug 9, 2015 09:50
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A Bridge Too Far is a great movie. Gotta love the scene where that British paratrooper almost makes it back with a canister of spare berets.
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Aug 9, 2015 11:43
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So here's a big, complicated question for the experts in the thread: What can you tell me about military doctrine around the world in the 19th century - say, just before the Franco-Prussian War? I know for instance that the French military was pretty well-respected before it got thoroughly trounced at Sedan, but what exactly about them was respected? How did the French at that point approach warfare, and what did they believe was the secret to their success? Across the Channel, what was the British take on warfare? I've heard they had a tendency to sort of "muddle along" for a good long time, but were they really completely disorganized or did they have anything at all approaching a unified method of military thinking? And across the Atlantic, did the Americans turn any of the lessons of the Civil War into an official military doctrine which they used later on? Did the Europeans pick up anything at all from that playbook, if there was one? What were the Austrians and Russians up to in terms of military thinking at that point? When Qing China and the Japanese tried to modernize, which schools of military thought were they most influenced by, and did they add any notable twists of their own? I don't expect to get all of these questions answered since, well, there's a lot of them and I imagine some of these questions are good for a whole thesis on their own, but anything at all would be very interesting!
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Aug 9, 2015 12:02
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JcDent posted:Do we keep stacking "counter-" to it till artillery on the whole front tied in exploding their counterparts? That wasn't a joke. Bewbies posted about this a few pages back and it's super interesting.
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Aug 9, 2015 12:17
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Endman posted:A Bridge Too Far is a great movie. Gotta love the scene where that British paratrooper almost makes it back with a canister of spare berets.
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Aug 9, 2015 12:29
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Arquinsiel posted:It's probably the movie which most explains my giant nerd boner for milhist and Market Garden in general. Showing it to preteen boys is dangerous. So many great actors in it, and the number of memorable moments is huge. Me too. Airborne are by far my favourite units to learn about from the Second World War, and it's largely the fault of that film. My favourite character was Major Carlyle and his umbrella. The attention to detail was astonishing too, all the way down to British soldiers throwing grenades like you'd bowl in cricket.
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Aug 9, 2015 13:02
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Speaking of epic WW2 movies with Sean Connery in them, I watched The Longest Day the other day. I think it was actually spurred by a mention in this thread. It's quite good, though not as good a A Bridge Too Far. It won an Oscar for cinematography which didn't come as a surprise, watching the harbour scene. The scene of the Germans seeing the invasion fleet appear in the horizon was also good. Rear projection is still surprisingly effective. It also has the distinction of having both a James Bond and two Bond villains (Gert Fröbe and Curd Jürgens) in it. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 13:08
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JcDent posted:And that's without the "fun" toys this thread keeps talking about. It seems the only place left for infantry is the city (unless the enemy decided to level that, too). It's sort of worth noting that this doesn't apply in an actual conflict between states, where one side can't pick and choose where they want to fight and how they want to do it. Sure, you can kill some dudes really good with rocket artillery, aerial bombardment and PGM's but you can't do that to every single one of them if you're actually fighting in a way that there's something resembling parity of force.
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Aug 9, 2015 13:10
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Endman posted:The attention to detail was astonishing too, all the way down to British soldiers throwing grenades like you'd bowl in cricket. Antti posted:Speaking of epic WW2 movies with Sean Connery in them, I watched The Longest Day the other day. I think it was actually spurred by a mention in this thread. It's quite good, though not as good a A Bridge Too Far. It won an Oscar for cinematography which didn't come as a surprise, watching the harbour scene.
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Aug 9, 2015 13:28
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Yeah, Richard Todd. Veterans playing themselves or in a movie covering a operation they were themselves in is one of my favourite movie trivia categories. Also Richard Burton has a brief role as a British Flight Officer because he was bored at the time and wanted something to do. The movie is mostly sober but it has a kind of cavalier attitude to some things that stands out in 2015. Like the surrendering Germans being gunned down and the American marine asking "What does bitte, bitte mean?" and it being treated as no big deal, or the Frenchman who is ecstatic as his house is shelled to pieces (and he of course survives). Oh and the Finnish variant of baseball was supposedly created as a training exercise in running from cover to cover and throwing grenades. Sulphagnist fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 13:41
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Arquinsiel posted:When I was taught cricket in school we were taught to bowl as if throwing a grenade. Funny how things come full circle like that. I remember my dad saying that when he was in basic he was specifically told "throw it like a baseball, not the dumb way they do it in movies."
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Aug 9, 2015 13:50
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Antti posted:Yeah, Richard Todd. Veterans playing themselves or in a movie covering a operation they were themselves in is one of my favourite movie trivia categories. Edit: the German prisoners being gunned that is, the longest day is as sanitized view of war as they come. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 13:57
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P-Mack posted:I remember my dad saying that when he was in basic he was specifically told "throw it like a baseball, not the dumb way they do it in movies." Basically, the way you want to throw a grenade is so that it goes as far away from you as possible. From what I've been lead to believe, grenades are hugely unreliable weapons at the best of times.
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Aug 9, 2015 14:02
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Arquinsiel posted:When I was taught cricket in school Such a palesman
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Aug 9, 2015 14:06
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Endman posted:Basically, the way you want to throw a grenade is so that it goes as far away from you as possible. Seems like the best way to do that would be to throw it like a third baseman does, and not like an outfielder. Hopping with the throw would be a bad idea on a battlefield.
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Aug 9, 2015 14:30
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Jobbo_Fett posted:They could shoot down the UAV... then counter-battery the arty I finished a paper on this exact topic last week. Basically...this would be great, but actually doing it is close to impossible given current equipment/doctrine/training. First, for the UAV, there's a fairly wide range of systems that are basically something close to untouchable (or at least not defeatable) right now. They fly too low and slow for fixed wing or heavy SAMs, their thermal signature is too small for any MANPADS, they have sensors that are so good they can do their surveillance mission well outside the range of any direct fire system, they're very hard to detect with any sensor (particularly radar), they're cheap, borderline expendable, and all over the place. For counterfire, artillery systems now are so lethal, accurate and mobile that 1) the first volley is usually all that they need to accomplish a given mission, 2) even with a quality grid provided by CF radar, they've probably moved by the time the counterfire mission is in the air. In other words, it is a seriously tough nut to crack. The biggest first step (from the US military's perspective at least) is to get back on the horse of old-timey Cold War style passive air defense (camo, concealment, deception) which we haven't done in like 30 years. A longer term solution to the artillery issue is pre-emptive counterfire, which sounds sort of like an oxymoron but it just means you try really hard to target threat artillery systems and sustainment before anything gets shot at you, because one it has been shot you're in serious trouble. bewbies fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 14:39
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Keldoclock posted:O?
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Aug 9, 2015 15:06
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Tekopo posted:I'm pretty sure that scene is from Saving Private Ryan. They're prisoners in Saving Private Ryan, but in The Longest Day they are coming out of a bunker with their hands raised, shouting "Bitte!"
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Aug 9, 2015 15:31
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They do the exact same bit in the landing scene in Ryan
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Aug 9, 2015 15:35
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Antti posted:They're prisoners in Saving Private Ryan, but in The Longest Day they are coming out of a bunker with their hands raised, shouting "Bitte!" In Saving Private Ryan, they aren't even Germans, IIRC.
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Aug 9, 2015 15:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:They do the exact same bit in the landing scene in Ryan The surrendering soldier they shoot in that scene is shouting in Czech, "Don't shoot! We're Czechs! We didn't hurt anybody!"
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Aug 9, 2015 16:08
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"To hell and back" is THE war veteran in a starring role movie, and frankly I'm disappointed no one has mentioned it yet. 
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Aug 9, 2015 16:14
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And nobody has mentioned fruity rudy yet either!
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Aug 9, 2015 16:56
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bewbies posted:I finished a paper on this exact topic last week. Basically...this would be great, but actually doing it is close to impossible given current equipment/doctrine/training. Is there a publicly available article on this stuff available on the Web somewhere?
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Aug 9, 2015 17:03
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Tomn posted:So here's a big, complicated question for the experts in the thread: What can you tell me about military doctrine around the world in the 19th century - say, just before the Franco-Prussian War? I know for instance that the French military was pretty well-respected before it got thoroughly trounced at Sedan, but what exactly about them was respected? How did the French at that point approach warfare, and what did they believe was the secret to their success? Across the Channel, what was the British take on warfare? I've heard they had a tendency to sort of "muddle along" for a good long time, but were they really completely disorganized or did they have anything at all approaching a unified method of military thinking? And across the Atlantic, did the Americans turn any of the lessons of the Civil War into an official military doctrine which they used later on? Did the Europeans pick up anything at all from that playbook, if there was one? What were the Austrians and Russians up to in terms of military thinking at that point? When Qing China and the Japanese tried to modernize, which schools of military thought were they most influenced by, and did they add any notable twists of their own? I'd like to know that too, especially regarding the post Napoleonic evolution of both the French and Prussian armies.
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Aug 9, 2015 17:19
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That'd be a fascinating thing (and monumental task to write up) to read about. If anyone here with the knowledge feels like they can take on that task I''d also read it.
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Aug 9, 2015 17:26
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Keldoclock posted:When did we go from fingers in ears to issued wads of cotton to rubber plugs to the modern electronic stuff? I guess when I say "soldier", I mostly mean artillerymen, since my understanding is even today many infantry forgo hearing protection outside of training, because they would rather be able to hear faint noises now, and live with the tinnitus later. But what about the guys shooting cannons in 1650? The Odyssey mentions Odysseus and his men fashioning earplugs of wax to avoid the song of Sirens, so dedicated hearing protection is literally ancient. I've found many accounts online of people finding/owning rubber earplugs from just about every belligerent in WW2, but I can't find a source with actual photos or documentation of them. They would have only been really issued or worn by naval gun crews and artillery crews, and as disposable items probably would have run out and/or become unserviceable pretty fast. The first patented earmuff design was from 1873, but they were just for the cold weather. Someone writing on Wikipedia claimed that Willson Safety Products invented protective earmuffs, but I can't find any evidence of that or even a rough date range. I think electronic earmuffs for the military (which filter noise based on volume so you can at least try to hear normally with them on) date back to around the late 1990s?
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Aug 9, 2015 18:06
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Kemper Boyd posted:Never mind that with primary sources, context matters a lot. Recently me and my friend were discussing a letter written by Johan Adler Salvius in the 1630's where he describes how poor the leadership of Swedish Marshal Åke Tott is. The popular interpretation is that Tott was a lovely general, but I've always figured that Salvius is actually saying "this guy is really sick with gout and his lungs are rotten and you should not have him lead armies." back from stabbing/getting stabbed by czechs this weekend, and i had a chance to measure the leaf points on some of our pikes. they are the length of my hand and the width of my palm. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 18:58
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Endman posted:A Bridge Too Far is a great movie. Gotta love the scene where that British paratrooper almost makes it back with a canister of spare berets. That exact thing happened in real life, only the paratrooper survived.
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Aug 9, 2015 19:01
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SeanBeansShako posted:That'd be a fascinating thing (and monumental task to write up) to read about. If anyone here with the knowledge feels like they can take on that task I''d also read it. Imperial Bayonets is the book that deals with something like that, no? I saw on /hwg/ during the weekend. ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:That exact thing happened in real life, only the paratrooper survived. Jesus, that's wonderful!
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Aug 9, 2015 20:11
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Happy Nuke Day Two: Nagasaki Boogaloo, everyone. Can someone repost that analysis about how/why the US chose to use the atomic bomb the way they did, and how/why that along with the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria influenced the final Japanese decision to surrender? I remember reading that either here or in the airpower/cold war thread and thinking it very interesting. Also does anybody have more information about the Kyujo Incident? I've been seeing that name more recently and I'd like to hear some professional opinions about whether it was as potentially world-shaking as online sources say.
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Aug 9, 2015 20:22
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For those who haven't read the wonderful story of Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter (the officer with the umbrella), this page is a good way to rectify that failing.
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Aug 9, 2015 20:23
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Davin Valkri posted:Can someone repost that analysis about how/why the US chose to use the atomic bomb the way they did, and how/why that along with the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria influenced the final Japanese decision to surrender? I remember reading that either here or in the airpower/cold war thread and thinking it very interesting. Yes somebody please post this.
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Aug 9, 2015 20:53
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Davin Valkri posted:Can someone repost that analysis about how/why the US chose to use the atomic bomb the way they did, and how/why that along with the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria influenced the final Japanese decision to surrender? I remember reading that either here or in the airpower/cold war thread and thinking it very interesting. There's a really bad thread on D&D about it but someone might have made a good post on it there.
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Aug 9, 2015 21:22
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Davin Valkri posted:Can someone repost that analysis about how/why the US chose to use the atomic bomb the way they did, and how/why that along with the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria influenced the final Japanese decision to surrender? I remember reading that either here or in the airpower/cold war thread and thinking it very interesting. Short answer: the invasion of Okinawa demonstrated pretty conclusively that invading the home islands was going to be a horrific bloodbath for everyone involved, so an alternative that would induce the Japanese to surrender without an invasion was badly needed. The bombings accomplished that. If you want more detail see the D&D thread TheLoveablePlutonis referenced.
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Aug 9, 2015 21:41
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Deteriorata posted:Short answer: the invasion of Okinawa demonstrated pretty conclusively that invading the home islands was going to be a horrific bloodbath for everyone involved, so an alternative that would induce the Japanese to surrender without an invasion was badly needed. It should be noted that prior to the nuclear bombing, there was basically a battle of planners who took inspiration from the battle of Luzon, and the planners extrapolating from Okinawa. Because of the way history played out, we'll never learn who was right (for instance a significant number of casualties in some plans was attributed to kamikaze pilots, with casualties per a kamikaze sortie ranging between 1.5 and 2.0 - yet others claimed improved anti-kamikaze doctrine combined with a general deterioration of the quality of the Japanese air force would lead to a drastic reduction in casualties), but the projected casualties o the American side ranged from some 30.000 in the first 30 days of invasion (as per the first McArthur commissioned report) to anything between 100.000 to a million. Quite frankly, nobody had an idea. The Japanese civilians would be mobilized, but frankly, by the time the invasion came to be, the best weapons issued to the civilians were firelock guns looted from museums, and most people only received either bamboo spears, or common civilian tools and were told to improvise with them.
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Aug 9, 2015 22:22
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Additionally in his address to the imperial council, Hirohito explicitly calls out that beach defenses that were to completed months ago still weren't finished.
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